Hi there. Here is a food review by me.
I visit Daldongnae Korean BBQ in the downtown Toronto area. The original plan was to visit Gyubee, a Japanese BBQ restaurant.
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This Gyubee visit plan failed as the waiting time was 2 to 3 hours. The time was almost 5PM and the wait time was this long. We left Gyubee and searched for something else. Daldongnae was near enough from the Eaton Centre Mall in downtown Toronto. As it had good Google reviews, it was worth a try. It has been a while since I had Korean food.
Daldongnae Restaurant
Daldongnae is a Korean BBQ that actually has a lot of locations in Downtown Toronto, North York (still in Toronto but not Downtown), Greater Toronto Area, Quebec, Ottawa and Waterloo. This looks like a large regional Korean franchise.
Screenshot of Google image (not my picture).
Pictures not shown here but there have been Korean and K-Pop celebrities that have been at the Yonge & Dundas downtown Toronto location. One big name has been Blackpink, a big K-Pop girl group.
They don't have all you can eat BBQ but we found out quickly that they give you a lot of food in their meat servings and side dishes.
Screenshot of part of Menu from their website.
What stands out at this place is that they have instructions on how their Korean BBQ works. As you wait for the waiter, you read the instructions.
Each person has to serve a minimum of one meat/veggie serving. A serving is from either from pork, chicken, beef, Wagyu Beef or vegetables. The minimum price of a serving is around 21 CAD.
The servings come with side dishes. These are:
- Steamed Egg
- Corn with Cheese
- Lettuce
- Soybean Tofu Stew
- Kimchi
- Acorn Jelly
- Pumpkin Salad
- Marinated Sliced Onions
- Bean Sprouts
- Seaweed Salad
The Food
For servings, my brother and I did one serving of Wagyu Beef Chuck Steak and one serving of Beef Rib Eye Roll. The Wagyu beef was 56 CAD and the rib eye was 28 CAD.
I did not take that many pictures but here is some of the food. We were kind of hungry so not much pictures taken.
The instructions state that you never put the side dishes on the grill. They also inform you on how long to cook the meats on the grill. The staff will also monitor your cooking so you don't accidentally overcook meats. They provide tongs and a large pair of scissors for cutting the meats to smaller pieces.
For the Beef Rib eye, the pieces were also tender and juicy. The Wagyu Beef was also tasty, tender and juicy. These Wagyu beef pieces were more easier to chew on and eat. Wagyu beef is cool and all but I am not sure if paying double for Wagyu beef over regular beef is worth it.
Closing Thoughts
This Daldongnae Korean BBQ location was very good overall. There was not much of a wait time, the interior is nice and service was really good.
It is not all you can eat BBQ but the meat servings are fairly large and there are a lot of side dishes. When it comes to prices, it is what it is when it comes to Toronto and cost of living. Our bill came up to something like 120 CAD after tips & tax. This is around 60 CAD each for the two of us. If you don't do Wagyu Beef and do regular beef and 1 serving of pork, the cost could down to something like 30 to 35 CAD per person.
I liked this place overall and would consider another visit. The service was very good and friendly. When it came to the food, it was good but not super amazing. My brother thought it was a bit underwhelming. He thinks Wagyu beef is somewhat overrated.
We would visit again but try some of their cheaper pork cuts.
My Rating is a 8.5 out of 10.
Thank you for reading.